Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - August 20, 2006
This is what President Thabo Mbeki said as he dismissed his deputy after Judge Hilary Squires had condemned what he called a generally corrupt relationship between Zuma and his financial adviser, Schabir Shaik.
This was a brave move by the president, a clear indication that he was not prepared to keep in his Cabinet a politician who was compromising the integrity of our government.
It is a move that he should perhaps repeat.
It is tragically ironic that a country like South Africa, which has one of the largest antiretroviral programmes to combat the spread of HIV/Aids, is the country with the highest number of Aids deaths in the world.
South Africa's Comprehensive Plan for Management, Care and Treatment of HIV and Aids is supposed to give hope to more than five million people living with HIV/Aids in this country.
But when there are only 141000 receiving treatment out of the 453000 people targeted by the plan for the current year, it becomes difficult to figure out whether it is political posturing or a lack of political will that is responsible for this sorry state of affairs.
This partly explains the bizarre exhibition of garlic, lemon, African potato and beetroot displayed by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang at the 16th International Aids Conference, which ended on Friday in Toronto, Canada.
Tshabalala-Msimang has become a comic figure who comes across as a clown, if her behaviour in Toronto is anything to go by.
For how long must South Africans suffer the embarrassment of a senior Cabinet minister who does not appear to take her work seriously?
Few people, if any, deny that nutrition is an important weapon in the arsenal to combat HIV/Aids.
However, pretending that antiretrovirals come second when there are so many people infected and dying of this epidemic is dangerous.
Why Tshabalala-Msimang chose not to display her own government's comprehensive plan for HIV/Aids treatment at the conference boggles the mind.
The silence by President Thabo Mbeki in the face of the embarrassment dished out by Tshabalala-Msimang in Toronto this week begs the question of whether he agrees with his Health minister.
It is now time Mbeki took action against Tshabalala-Msimang.
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